Recent Spinning

This month, I had a lot of fun with my spinning projects. I decided to try something new and purchased 4 oz. of corriedale from my local yarn shop. There were two packages for sale: an off-white colored one, and one that was a slight variety of darker colors. I chose the darker fiber. While it has some off-white fiber in it, it is mostly a brownish gray. The color does give it a more rustic look, and it does not look as soft as it is. Especially after washing it, it should be soft enough to wear against the skin without a problem. 

Spinning the corriedale was wonderful. It drafted like butta'. Up until this point, I have not been able to spin a thicker yarn with much consistency, but my 2-ply finished yarn falls mostly within a worsted weight, with some thick and thin action happening. When I originally purchased it, I was debating whether to be listing the finished yarn on my Etsy shop. If it shows up and then disappears, it may be because Spike did take a liking to it and thought it would make a nice hat. :)

Would I spin corriedale again? Definitely. 

Another fun spinning-related thing that happened was the county fair. The kids and I have attended either the county or state fairs every year since we began homeschooling. Getting to go during non-busy hours and getting a nice discount on admission are a big part of that, but the kids have always enjoyed it. Normally, I leave the fair kicking myself for not submitting anything for the living arts competition. This year, I decided to change that. I submitted this shawl and my bamboo handspun yarn. My shawl got first place, and my yarn received best of division. The ribbons are currently hanging by my yarn stash, in all their kitschy glory.

I have learned over the years that many knitters, spinners, and crocheters have yarn distributed in many areas of their home. I am no exception. My kids jokingly kid me about it, and my husband does not mind it at all. I do, from time to time, make it attempt to corral all the yarn back to it's central location in our school/craft room. Our entertainment center has a shelf that was a temporary home to many small balls of handspun. These are mostly the leftovers after finished a full bobbin of 2-ply. I get excited to see it all strung upon my niddy-noddy and toss the remainders up upon the shelf. I decided to do something about that this week, and have been working a little each evening on plying together some of those lonely small balls of singles. The latest amount I finished is some of the remainder of some merino that I Kool-Aid dyed. I spun a large amount of the singles with a spindle before I got my wheel, and it was the first yarn I ever plyed. It does look nicer on the niddy-noddy than in a ball on a shelf, I must say.